Batali: I maintained their respect by contributing to the quality of the show. Were my scripts good enough? Were my jokes good enough? Were my stories good enough?

I can point to some specific moments on the show that were quite different, especially the eighth season when I helped run the show. I can point to the direction of the show we took, things we didn’t — I can more point to stories that we didn’t do. Those are hard to — I can’t take them into a church and say, “Here’s a clip of a scene we didn’t do.” That’s what it mostly came to.

LarkNews: You were on that thing eight seasons.

Batali: Seven seasons, 175 episodes. From the second season on.

LarkNews: Take me from Buffy real quick. If people know you, Buffy is big in their minds. You were there for one and a half seasons?

Batali: First season. I think they did six seasons.

LarkNews: Of course, nobody knew this would be a success.

Batali: In fact, we got the job late.

LarkNews: It was a movie?

Batali: Yep. We got the job late; it was not hot at all. The meeting, I mean — Joss Whedon, who created the show, is the best writer I’ve ever worked with. Brilliant writer.

LarkNews: Did he write the movie?

Batali: Yes, and they went to him to see if he wanted to do the TV show thinking he wouldn’t want to do it, and he did. We did all 13 episodes before we were even on the air. We premiered after Seventh Heaven. That’s how off of a pairing it was. Looked at as a heaven and hell evening.

Joss was putting together a staff of both half-hour sit-com writers and hour-long writers. And he liked our script. He actually read our script of the Adventures of Pete and Pete, which had been on Nickelodeon.

It was fantastic. It was great story-telling. His pitch was, horror movies are an allegory for high school. He said the most terrifying place he ever was, was high school. So he wanted to do stories — now remember at the time he said, “I want to do stories about a girl who is so unpopular that she literally becomes invisible and starts beating people over the head with a bat.” Wanted to do a show about these kids who get affected by the spirits of hyenas to show the pack mentality. I thought those were really interesting allegories.

We did a story about a guy becoming a werewolf which was more about adolescence. “What’s all this weird hair on my body?” So I said that’s a show I want to be part of. He wanted us on it.

LarkNews: This was not like people rushing to be on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was like how many episodes will this last?

Batali: Yeah.

LarkNews: What do you do when you take a job like that? Would you pray about it and feel it? Is it a leading of the Spirit?

Batali: There was nothing at the time in any of the jobs I’ve taken that I felt, “I should not take this job.” Since then there have been jobs I did not go after because of my faith. One of them is Dexter, which in retrospect I kind of wish I’d taken because weirdly enough this year they put a lot of Christian characters on it. They’re doing a lot of stuff about religion.

Dexter on one level could be looked at as Micah 6:8, a guy doing justice, however he’s not loving mercy while he does it. I’d written a script that the producer of Dexter really liked, before it was on the air. I read the pilot and I went, “This is going to be like pornography. It’s going to be all about the body, and I don’t want to do it.” Then he was still interested in me after the first season. I watched the first season and it was amazing television. Actually some of the best 13 episodes as a whole. It really added up to morality. There were also images in there I wish I had never seen and I’ll never get out of my mind. ‘Cause it was really graphic.

I did take the meeting. It was between me and one other writer in the end, and they went with the other writer. Over the course of that year I felt I shouldn’t be there. Also remember that I was just coming off of ‘70s Show. I just felt that I’d been on a show fighting against the morality for seven years. I didn’t want to go on another one where I was going to be, “Let me see if I can make it a little less so.” And a year later I felt a little bit different.

A job is offered. Can I take the job? Is there any obvious reason I can’t be there at all? Would I have taken a job on Will & Grace? Probably. Would I have taken a job on The L Word? Probably not. Showtime show about lesbians. I didn’t want to do Charmed. There was another Christian writer, Sheryl Anderson, who took the job and she was right to take it. Interestingly enough, one of the original actresses on Charmed was a Christian. She decided after the pilot she could not participate in the show anymore so they re-cast her with Alyssa Milano.

We were disconnected at the time, ‘cause imagine if that actress had stayed, and I had come on the show, and the other Christian writer had been on the show. There would have been three vocal Christian voices on a show about witches. What might God have done?

I’ve said this before in churches: “It would be foolish of me to suggest that if we had all three taken that job, then those three witches would have eventually become Christian on the show. But you know what God might have done? Those three witches might have become Christians. Because that’s what God does. He does foolish, crazy things.”

Look at the mathematics of how we, if we’re here — what’s it going to be like if we’re not on the shows? Again, are there limits? Yes. Are there places we shouldn’t go? Yes, but I still think we have to be represented in these rooms where culture is made.

I’ve worked with something like 75 writers now, and I’ve only worked with four others who go to church and they wouldn’t describe themselves as evangelical Christians at all. They’re just kind of social church-goers. There are a lot more evangelical Christians now in Hollywood, but we need more. It’s still a matter of, can we get our voice at the table? I want to see characters who do things because of their love for God, not say no to things. Right? This is why I like Machine Gun Preacher, because it’s about a guy going. I want to see characters who care for widows and orphans because that’s what the Bible tells us to do. I’d like to see even jokes that are — to see people treat each other —

My issue with That ‘70s Show surprisingly isn’t as much about how much drugs or sex they had. I think the characters on That ‘70s Show were mean to each other in a way that, if you go back to shows like Mary Tyler Moore, The Cosby Show or Family Ties, were not as mean. Today’s sit-com characters are mean to each other. It’s cruelty. Cruelty as humor. That’s what I tried to pull back on That ‘70s Show. That’s what I think is more damaging to our culture than the sex and the drugs.

LarkNews: That they didn’t love each other.

Batali: You know, they did. They loved each other ‘cause they were there for one another, but they weren’t kind. It’s kindness. So how can you be kind and funny? It’s hard. We tease each other all the time. What is the limit? Are there jokes Christians should not tell? I’ve spoken about this and get asked about it a lot. What’s the Christian philosophy of humor? I don’t know. Are there different rules for me as a Christian?

I talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes a lot. I think it’s our job as a church to point out when the emperor has no clothes. But if all we do is keep laughing at that guy, then we’re just laughing at the naked man, right? So it’s our job after we point it out to then clothe him. Can we not be as cruel as some writers? I don’t know. Do we have a different toolbox? I don’t know. I still struggle with this.

I think the most pro-abstinence movie ever made is The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and I could never write it ‘cause it’s so dark and crass, but it leads to this amazing moment. That movie says if you wait until you’re married to have sex it’s going to be better than anything you could imagine. That’s the philosophy of that movie, but it also has bestiality jokes and all sorts of body part jokes. But it elevates morality. The immoral, mean people are lessened in that movie. It’s an amazing — but I can’t recommend you show that in church. And I couldn’t write it that way. So even when I’m writing jokes now I go, “Is that too cruel? Is that debasing humanity?” It’s tough.

Then it gets into, can Christians be as funny as non-Christians? It goes back to that laughing about the potluck joke. At what level? Certainly Dick Van Dyke — I look at the difference between how Murray and Sue Ann used to argue on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It’s very different than how they argue on Friends. People say, “I loved Friends. That’s the kind of people I want in my life.” Watch it for five minutes and see how mean they are to each other. It looks like they love each other because they hang around.

There’s a whole argument to be made. Actually Hugh Hewitt wrote in his book The Embarrassed Believer about Roseanne specifically, the show. Because Roseanne suddenly became more about the put-down. It basically said if you stand up for anything, I’m going to make fun of you. And look at how that permeates our culture now. We even as Christians back off because we know that if we stand up for what we believe, we’re going to be made fun of.

This is my problem with The Daily Show, which I think is hilarious, but I can’t watch it because it just feeds my cynicism. It feeds my making fun of others without building up.

So is it our job as Christians to knock down the sacred cows but then lift up the next one? And I don’t know. I don’t know how to do it yet.

LarkNews: I remember being at Premise and running around in Hollywood circles, the little ones, and a lot of young people who were basically just wanting to get someone to read their script. We can all talk about Christians being in Hollywood, but how much of that is a cover for naked ambition?

Batali: (laughs)

LarkNews: Have you met a person who you thought, “This person is called to Hollywood”? Not someone who said, “I’m called to Hollywood.” ‘Cause there’s a difference. Some people you know are coming here almost against their will, because the Lord told them to. As opposed to the kind of person who is just ambitious.